of country folk in august

Whenever we worked at the creekside shed
there was always something else to do
such times as we were stumped, or nails ran short,

or the sun reached round the fir and baked us down
from raftering, roofing, or the like. We leaned,
gossip-like, against the fresh framing

of the walls, sipping solar tea,
watching the edge of a cloud's long skirt
chase the neighbors' horses leisurely

across their pasture, down the camas swale
and up the other side, against the black contrast
of maple-shrouded hills. The horses liked

to amble up to our corner, stand and watch.
We couldn't cure them of the shies,
though we might try with handfuls

of our green grass, or a few choice
coaxing words. They'd check us out:
first one black blink from behind

the forehead blaze, and then another,
cocking their long heads round to see
our self-assured, predatory faces, eyes front,

gazing on them, horse-flesh accountants
by their reckoning. Their flanks
would shiver, and their forefeet stamp,

scoring the earth in a language built of weight.
Some movement would always spook them off:
a silvery chisel hefted, or water bottle sloshed,

spattering sun. They'd hammer up the swale;
Lovingly we'd watch them go, coveting
our neighbors' lands and all that lived thereon,

as country folk in August always do.
 

in the closed vale

The following is an epistola metrica composed in English in imitation of and playfully attributed to Francesco Petrarca. The appended sonnet is however genuine and translated from the Italian.)

“Petrarch here deliberately gives the impression that he is writing from Vaucluse soon after his brother Gherardo, the presumed addressee of the epistle, has joined the Carthusian order in 1343, perhaps in the winter of 1343-44. But at this time Petrarch was in Naples and then Parma. Parma is vividly mentioned in the poem, but other internal evidence strongly suggests that the letter is of later date, after 1348 at least. If the letter was written at Vaucluse, it would probably date from the period of his residence from 1351-53, after he had begun but not finished collecting his familiarum rerum libri. It is possible that Petrarch composed this letter, among others, with the intention of inserting it at a specific point in the chronology of collected letters and that it was not intended for Gherardo's eyes at all. The letter, however, is stylistically inferior to much of Petrarch's work, and he must have realized this, for it was never included in his finished work, and has only recently come to light, quite by accident. The original is in Latin, with a sonnet appended in Italian.”

in the closed vale, 

my sweet brother, the swallows are doing 
their silent work without complaint.
They are like you; wherever they are the people
are made happier, and everything becomes
much cleaner, as after April rains. It was
April, you know, when you chose to leave me here,
and all your friends, and the long nights of talking 
of glorious ancients, and of the fathers of 
sad spurned faith, and poor neglected Rome.
Even so was it April when my heart,
as you know, left me for another, never to return 
while I have life, so that every laurel
and every breeze might mock my emptiness,
and my soul hung like a green leaf before
the breath of crowds; my reputation was their toy
and their laughter blew me about upon the branch 
till I, brown and sere, fell upon the stream
and drifted here, deep in the shadows of my own
vale chiusa, my sweet brother, that is so like 
me, for its hidden spring weeps in winter 
and in summer, without end. But you
have been a comfort to me; whether here, 
nesting like a swallow in the cliff above
the east bank of the green and tumbling stream;
or far below, in the dusty-throated Babylon
on the plain: a counter to the madness
and corruption of that place, and a complement
of cheerful sufficiency in the other, always
helpful in my crazed efforts to placate
the nymphs of the vale, while honoring the muses
that always make them jealous, so that every 
meadow, every garden we built there
was swept away within the year; their fury
undiminished till complete; their victory 
leaving no sign of all that I -- that we 
had striven to plant or build to beautify
our memories of that place. And just as our gardens 
were swept away by the jealous nymphs, I feel
you too have been stolen -- by a jealous God. Please,
my sweet brother, bear with me, for I feel swollen 
with sorrows, but I mean no blasphemy! 
Does not the Father of Heaven himself say,
"I am a jealous God"? and he takes away 
the best, always, because the best is right 
for him to take. And I know that it is God
that has taken you, and not some gang of monks 
whose heaven is an inn, and whose God
is carried within the circle of their belts!
Rather, I know it is God because only the Father 
inspires the life of the silent men, whom you 
have been inspired to join with, not a rabble
of cenobitic share-alls, grubbing each
at the other's blanket under a common roof, 
breathing garlic in one another's ears
the whole night long, and begging for new wine 
or chasing women all the day, making
the name of Christ a joke to the common people,
so that when these beggars go out for alms,
a man may say to them, "What! You here again?" 
and call some poor fellow from the ditch
and give the alms to him instead, saying
"Here! In Mohammed's name, for he truly
is stronger than the Christ these fellows talk of!"
But your order, an eremetic city set
on a hill, is cleanly, faithful, quiet, and strong 
in the kindly works of our Lord. They and you
are so alike, how could it have been otherwise? 
Thus do I say, a jealous God took you,
for he could not bear this filthy world should hold
such a one another day. All
my friends are like you in this; the Lord loves 
them all too well; he takes them, one by one;
Remember Parma? It was there, you know,
by the bench I told you I'd had built,
that I, one day, was weeding among the bulbs,
near enough to the little brook to hear
its crystal song above the deeper roar
of the famous city so close by, and a darkness
came and stood upon that bridge, and I
looked up and into that darkness, as I have done 
so often at the mouth of the fountain here
(for I am not afraid of caves and darkness,
and love to walk at night, even when
there is no moon), and saw therein our friend, 
Giacomo Colonna, striding across
where that branch of the plane tree dips so closely 
to the pool, between the bench and the wall.
I greeted him, surprised, and most concerned,
for he was hurrying along, and had no company, 
and seemed as if he would not -- could not -- tarry.
He smiled, yet would not be embraced, and said 
(I will never forget his words then!),
"Don't you recall the awful storms along
the baleful crest of the high Pyrenees?
You hated them; so did I, and now
I am leaving those places forever: I am for Rome."
I wanted to go with him, but he was so stern 
it made me afraid to speak; it was clear
that he would not have me go, so I looked
closely on him, to fix his beloved features 
forever in my mind, and it was then
that I saw how pale he was, and knew that he
was dead. I have said elsewhere that this 
was in a dream, but already I am not so sure. 
Colonna died that very day, you know;
So I feel I really saw him. But you I never
see now, asleep or awake, but only remember. 
Even as I write, I remember,
and it seems as though I might shape you 
with my words. I see you as you were 
when we braved the craggy slopes so high
above this shady valley, when we were young. 
You took the straight path as it lay before you, 
up and over all obstacles,
no matter how fearsome, and never stopped till you 
had reached the appointed goal. You were then
just as you are; that is why God loves you
best! While I, wandering this way and that, 
sought to take a path that looked the easiest, 
but found to my chagrin it turned downhill.
I was lucky to reach the top at all,
but I did! I did! You cannot deny it, brother. 
And it was I who brought our precious saint,
Augustinus, with us all that way.
The clouds were lower down, with the late sun 
bright on their broad fleecy backs, and the Alps
shone so far to the south, between us and 
our father-country Italia, and the sea.
At our feet, so near it seemed a dream,
the Rhone, gleaming, in its bed of stones.
All this was first yours, but also mine,
and I brought forth Augustinus from my breast
and gave his benediction to that day:
that men wander through the world gazing 
upon the high mountain tops, the great
ocean waves and deeply springing rivers, 
and the slow-turning canopy of bright stars, 
yet never think to look upon their souls.
This you have done; but this, I fear, I fear
to do, or rather wish to do but always turn 
just as I reach the heavenly door, to seek
some easier-seeming path, some flowered way, 
and always find, as on that peak, my way 
leading down, toward some darkened place.
God be my witness, I often try to turn
there on my pleasant-seeming path, back
to the place where last I saw the door, but it
by then is gone, and nothing there I find
but a smooth expanse of bramble-covered wall. 
And now you write to me and say the things
I have so often told myself, troubled,
as you must believe, beyond the common run 
of men in sin! Brother, I have even
made a small book wherein I keep
my lapses and successes; already once 
I kept myself safe for two years
and seven months; now, it is true, the priest 
to whom I go for confession is kept busy, 
but I trust the Lord will give me strength ...

In living alone, as you know by now, there is 
much to be gained. I have here the two 
faithful servants and the dog, and visitors
come, but not too often, and the people
of the valley seem to regard me as their judge, 
but I do have, as you have seen for yourself,
a space to myself within the walls of my
small house, south windowed, and endowed with one 
extravagant thing: a good scriptorium.
Nearby are the books, my closest friends: they 
(Virgil, Cicero, Livy, and the rest,
and Augustinus, my advisor and true 
confessor) open continually their great treasures 
to me, and through me, to all the world beside. 
Do you not rise and pray in the midst of night
that all the saints may bless the wide world? 
And the scripture says, "the heartfelt prayer 
of a righteous man effecteth much." So too
you pour out the treasures of heaven on 
the earth, as I unearth and bring to light 
the gold and silver of the past! Brother,
my work is not so unlike yours...except, 
of course, that I am able to put my name 
on all my little productions! I do admit,
to you, now, dear heart, that I desire 
greatly to see my name remembered -- God 
forgive this! I see two thirsts in me: the one
to live forever in a name above
the common herd; the other, to nurse along 
the hurt that blind boy gave me, years ago
when I was least prepared to defend myself. 
Yes, I am still thirsting! Only those
who have never seen her cannot understand!
The light foliage of her hair, the dark 
contrasting brows...the all-destroying twin 
suns burning in her face, that should
have killed me long since, but Fortune
preserved me, for they have been oft averted; 
while my own eyes looked everywhere that she, 
I knew, was not, and found her in stones and winds 
and even among the roots of trees along
the storm-scoured banks of the river Sorgue.
I have sat upon the grass at midnight
and rained tears on my own breast, because 
the stars, so like her in their shining,
wheeled by beyond my reach, 
as thoughtless of my suffering as she! And it seems
to me now these two thirsts are one
in some way: that as the light-limbed goddess 
vanished, and in her place stood rooted forever 
the dreamless, unapproachable laurel tree,
Apollo might have lifted a storm-stolen 
branch with which to weave himself a crown 
for remembrance; so with me, for to console
myself that tears and smiles, and even my poems 
moved not one, though they move all others,
I might, somewhere along the Appian Way,
pluck some branch of the very tree of hate 
and, weaving it round my brows, make it 
forever after my crown of love. The Africa
will earn me this, though it is already mine,
but I have begun, my brother, to gather the scattered l
eaves that the winds of Love have brought me here
and elsewhere -- if it must be pain, then let the pain 
be famed! Famed in France and Italy, and even
as far as the shores walked by Scipio, or
the mountains beyond the sacred land where Christ 
walked along the Galilean strand.
Is this dreaming? Perhaps I have dreamed it all;
some will say: "this man invents everything 
he says has happened to him"; but, brother, 
you know I speak to you sincerely from the heart,
this heart that is not mine but another's,
for you yourself once loved truly one
who now has gone beyond you and the grave.

What is life? They, the crowd, never
ask, but I have asked, all my days,
and now I tell you what even the ancients most
desired to know, yet never found: this life
of man is a kind of dreaming, whether awake 
or sleeping. He rises in a dream, and dresses
with dreaming hands. In the field he dreams of grain, 
and at his nets he catches silver dreams.
He looks but cannot see, and hears but nothing
hears, as our blessed Lord tells us; there is 
nothing between a man and a man but words, 
and our words are all, and only, stuff of dreams.

I make myself in books, brother, because 
I want my dreams to go on living yet, 
and I know no other way. Is this so evil?
I will tell you more when I come, dear brother, 
for I desire much to see you, and
observe the true monastic rule, some days
or even weeks, if the Abbott will allow.
I close by appending a copy of the first leaf 
that drifted from my pain, back
to my door here in the wild, so that I might 
weave it in the crown that now I wear
here in the closed vale, where it is always
winter in my soul without you, dear brother. 

Apollo! If yet lives the beautiful desire
that set you aflame by the Thessalian coast, 
and if your love for the blonde tresses
amid wheeling years, has not found oblivion 

through slow ice and sharp, wicked time 
enduring while your face yet seems obscured,
protect this loved and sacred foliage
by which first you and then I were caught; 

and by the virtue of that hope of love
that kept you up despite your life of pain, 
completely clear the air of all falsehood;
we may then both see a wonder in the same way:

seated, our lady, upon the grass 
making, with her arms, her own shade.

eighty-six, he

                                 stands in his garden and tells
of the journey from Ohio that never ended,
not even with the case of sun-ripe peaches.

"The Lord sure has blessed me. Oh, yes.
See how the apricots grow, and the pears, 
and the oranges? And these now, the farmers

hate them, but I don't, I water them;
the Spaniards, when they landed, looked for a sign 
and the loaves and the fish of our Lord

were seen in the flowers of the vine."
He walks in the shade of the live oaks,
talks of Kentucky, of boyhood and manhood,

Of the girl that he married, who fell
years later, and broke something inside, 
and the child they had found, and the land,

and the tall pines he tended, that stand 
where the wind-driven lake once rippled 
and broke on the crystalline sand.

we are that kind

of town-bred country folk 
that say, when asked, oh yes, we do keep stock,
then easily turn the subject to one side.

Some friend persists; she wants to know the worst. 
"If you," I tell her, "want to do this, under-
stand: sometimes you'll have to take the place

of God." Our ducks, good Khaki Campbells, come 
by mail in lots of twenty, every second
year. When small, they're all engaging, all 

underfoot, following our steps with small 
heartwarming cries. But half are drakes. In high
summer I don my serious face, and tie

with care my long blue apron on. I go
to the barn, butcher's block in hand, and like
the surgeon spread my choicest tools nearby. 

The axe is first, and as its blade rises,
I feel that panic rising in the eyes
hidden beneath my unrelenting hand.

Emily,

you almost kiss
the bed with your small lips,
sipping night in these

surprising infant gasps 
that hold a little life in you 
for seconds at a time.

You sleep well, unless
the hour is cool, and then you 
hunt for arms, and nose

to cold nose, tell silently
all you know into our beating hearts 
until dawn comes.

I listen in fear, 
for I suspect
that when I learn

what you are saying here between 
your parents in the dark,
I will weep and mourn

our having brought you here 
without your wings.

took a piece of bread

                                and wandered: down 
to pools, to streams; examined the undersides
of clouds, swimming on their slow grey backs

in still water. These and the spring-bare trees, 
and the winter teat of thawed leaf mould, 
and the new birds on old nests, breast-brave,

egg-rich and cocksure, and the first fawn 
mothered in close twilit last-year's bracken
say the old songs in the blood (again), the stories

and the root-songs sung to the wordless waters 
passing these, through and among, to the sea: 
we all do this, take breath and be not afraid.

How we came to Stony Run Farm

1. 
 
we went to see the place in Walterville.
Before we had even seen the house, the neighbor,
a man of some seventy years, bent with woods work,
stopped to chat. "The house isn't much, but the soil is good. 
Oh, it has some Scotch broom, I know,
on the pasture, but you can get ahead of that
if you keep after it. I helped the last folks with their fence, 
but they wanted the gate right here, where the tractor 
couldn't get in. They'd no sense."
We asked why no fence between his place
and "ours." "Oh, I don't need a fence. Don't want your apples, 
and you're welcome to mine."
The sort of thing we'd hoped. We walked 
over the pasture till we reached the 
incense cedars, each one five feet thick, and 
found a hanging branch worn smooth 
by generations of children's swinging. 
Good, and the valley here was wide, with 
mountains stretching east and west,
and sunshine access on short winter days. 
But the house wouldn't do; bedrooms dark and tiny, 
with telltale smell throughout
of dry rot underneath. Desire for land sets one dreaming. 
One acre, three acres-- not enough to farm, but who can farm
with these prices? It becomes a privilege
just to set out onions, and a cow
is not mere luxury, but even a kind of madness
to actually hope for. We have cross fenced
our high-taxed valleys so that to walk straight 
for five minutes can't be done, and all
the while buying our produce from five hundred miles away, 
where the tractors have as many wheels as your freeway rig. 
I want to put my hands into the ground 
and make it yield enough to make 
my children grow, and not grow poor in the process. 
We drove home, and quarreled along the way 
about land, the way people do 
who have gone to see not only what they could not 
have afforded, but ought not to have desired. 
The ducks were glad to see us; 
she watered them, and I picked tomatoes. 
We kissed and made up,
and lay awake in our small suburban house 
beneath the wheeling moon and stars. 
Why is it, I wondered then and wonder now, that no one
ever seems to know when they have enough? 

When sleep came, there was a vivid dream.
I met again the old man with no fence,
and saw him pointing to the earth. "This
was river bottom in here not too long ago,"
I heard him say. "When we drilled down forty
feet, we hit a driftwood tree, even though
the river now is half a mile away." 
He opened up the earth somehow, and showed me the tree,
still caught amid the smooth and rounded stones 
deep beneath the topsoil, which now I saw
was dark and rich, as he had said it was.
I reached to touch the soil, and awoke.
The northbound train was rumbling by the house, 
carrying produce from industrial farms,
and I was drenched in sweat, and found the moon 
had drifted far across the window to the west.

2.

She spreads the brightly colored packets 
round the table, and speaks of hope.
I lift a flat paper envelope, with its picture
of a perfect beet, and shake it like a rattle, "Hey-ya!" 
She sits across, nodding and smiling, and hefts 
a half pound of peas, offering its promise,
like incense, to the gods of our little life.
We've drawn out and made domains of the gardens. 
The east one, very small, is on the highest ground,
and drains superbly. It is all hers. She loves
to dig in early spring and late in the fall, 
coaxing brassicas, beets, chard, sugar snap peas
to grow in long succession through the year.
The south garden, sheltered from hot winds,
but prone to wetness, is mine. I've raised my beds
high as I can pile them, tossed away stones, and spread out 
golden chunks of bales of straw, redolent of the ducks 
who've nested on them. Here tomatoes and sunflowers, 
limas and vine crops broil in the sun by day and rest by night.
The north garden, on the only flat, gets sun
but stays colder longer. It is the largest,
so we share it, and here we fight. I look 
for long rows of corn and beans, and always more
tomatoes. She tries new things I can't pronounce, 
and seeks the permanence of berries: 
raspberry is her favorite thing under the sun, I dunno.
We fight over water, when to use, how much. 
We fight over planting depth, shade, what
to harvest when, and how long to blanch beans.
We fight all the way to the bedroom; its north window 
opens onto the windswept beds. In plain view
the rustling rainbow windsock
presides there over the rustling corn, and our fighting 
turns to sudden loving. We hold each other's 
life, like seed, in careworn hands,
and sleep, like seed, until the sun's return.

3.

She sell books from nine to six. They are good books, 
well bound, well written, colorful
to the eye, and children love them, but
the town is poor. She sits waiting for hours
for one grandmother to come in and buy one book 
for a favored grandchild. The owner of the store
is her friend; she cannot leave her just now, 
but the store, she knows, is not her place in life. All
she has ever wanted is to farm: at evening,
when the dinner things are cleared, and the hot sun 
drops behind the cottonwood, she farms.
Food for the ducks, and soapy water for broccoli;
old lettuce gone to seed comes out; the hay is rearranged, and 
fall peas go in. She stops only to hear the geese pass overhead,
then bends among her plants until the stars, first one 
and then another, leap and are caught in the hair of 
approaching night, so like her hair.
She comes in, soiled to the elbows, leans against the table, 
extending an open palm. "Look,"
she says, her eyes afire. "Marigold seeds!"

4.

It was not enough to see, in colorful magazines 
and costly books, the country homes
and garden walks that men and women build
who have only ready money and a few ideas. 
I too wished to sit sometimes drinking
tea by firelight, admiring a work of beams
and plaster, hanging fruit and herbs, good books 
liberally strewn, and a sleeping cat (or two).
To which end we labored without cash, days
and even nights with saw and chisel, scraper, 
hammer, knife, and plane, using such wood, 
such paint, and even such nails as came to hand.
Our friends and friends of our friends remembered us 
when their surplus had to go, and I went forth
with battered truck and pry bar, gathering decks
and fences long past keeping for those without 
the patience to rebuild. We have learned
to watch for stones of certain weight and shape;
to lay a course of ninety-year-old brick,
to scrap a window sash to get the glass
for cutting, and to fill the oddly angled wall
with joint compound. When supplies ran short,
we turned to the acre of ground, and forked 
and spaded, laying out long beds, piling them with straw,
covering the paths with leaves of oak, maple
 and ash. Seeds bought last year at sale,
ten cents a pack, were sown with trembling hand.
They all did well: the new shelves are fat
with harvest. This all has come late to me. Now
we do sit in chimney-corner like the English cottage-
keepers, tea in hand and cat in lap, ready to peruse 
an act of Winter's Tale or book of Faerie Queene, only to find
our eyes no longer focus on ten-point type
for an act or a book at a time. I call the youngest child; 
she reads to me from Sendak, or
our mutual favorite, Potter, haltingly, but with a will, 
improving as she goes. As she sounds out words, I watch a knot
of fir collapse into the coals, and fall
to long, light sleep, with not unpleasant dreams.

 

 

Iron Buddhas 20

 -- 20 --

STEFFI stumbles into dim dawn, goes potty, splashes some creek on her eyes, and comes back to her rumpled campsite to struggle into her boots. Her feet always swell at night, especially the left one where the log got her, and her back always hurts these days, so boots are one of her bugaboos. Not getting younger. She packs up her camp. Tent, sleeping bag, candle, matches, a wrinkled copy of Desert Solitaire, water bottle, and the bag of trail mix, which is leaking oats at one corner where mice have gotten in. Laces it all on the pack frame. It's lighter than yesterday's load, so she leaves off the tumpline. Hup, hup, up, up before the sun hits the northern treetops. Once she's loaded up, she throws her poly poncho over the whole rig, popping her head through the hood. Things are damp this morning.
    She's on the trail, slapping through wet thimbleberry, watching her step in the mud. There's bear poop every hundred feet or so -- big pies, brown at the edges, purple in the middle -- berry season. One of them has a dragonfly sipping at its essence. My, this stuff looks fresh.
    Round the next bend, a commotion commences in the thimbleberries, enough to make Steffi's heart leap. Brush jumbles around upslope from the trail, and she sees just a bit of black, furry rump disappearing amid hazels and vine maples almost overhead.
    "Whatever," she says. "You gotta know, you scared me too."
    As she passes the spot where the animal has left the trail, she admires the damage that's been done to the thimbleberry bushes. Nothing subtle about bears.
    At the following bend of the trail, Steffi comes to a fork. To the right is the fire trail that goes straight up to the landing -- a wearying, leg-killing hike, and her feet and back are still bugging her. To the left the way stays with the creek a while longer, then ascends the ridge more gently, with switchbacks. It comes out on the road half a mile out of the way, but at least the hike back to her hidden motorcycle will be flat.
    Okay, let's do it.
    In ten minutes she comes to the beaver pond. It's black, still, and loaded up with slick logs, but she likes it here. The biggest log is covered with slabs of bark -- good traction -- and there's even a trail along it, consisting of a patina of mud and sand pocked with caulk holes. All around stand water-killed trees that have so much character she thinks of them as Ents, from Tolkien.
    She's halfway across when the huge log, which she would have sworn was tucked into the mud, does the impossible -- it rolls. She'd dance with it, to stay on top, but the pack frame is adding a fillip of clumsiness. One foot -- the left one, of course -- slips into the water, and then the log settles into its new preferred resting spot, with Steffi's foot caught -- not crushed, thank goodness, but absolutely immobilized -- somewhere beneath. She sits down heavily.
     How's the other foot? She's straddling the log, but on the other side there's a log nestled firmly against the big one; her boot heel rests on the crack comfortably. Nothing feels strained or sprained in either leg. Tailbone hurts from sitting down hard, that's about it.
    She tries rocking the log back and forth. Nope. It's happy right where it is. Can she reach the boot and unlace it? Nope. Can't feel the foot any more, either, in the cool water that's seeped into the boot.
    She shucks her poncho, shrugs out of the pack straps, drags the pack frame around to her side, and looks it over. Not much here to work with. Some water. The bottle won't fit in the crack to get more, once it runs out. Worry about that when she gets thirsty. Some food. Oh-- that'll make her thirstier. Oh well. That heavy pry bar that went up yesterday would be nice to have right now! Or at least a good whistle. But no one's close enough to hear a whistle. She can feel it.
    It's not a sunny day, but she's out in the open and will slowly burn, sitting here long enough. She pulls the poncho back over herself for shade and sits, staring at the trail where it picks up beyond the pond.
    Ho, ho, ho, that way lies madness. Steffi, you're in trouble. Correction. Whoever you might have been, you're in trouble.  When your leg is locked up like this with no one expected back to find you, you don't have a name anymore.
    After a few minutes, she digs out Ed Abbey and reads awhile. At first, it makes matters worse. He's always getting into exactly such scrapes and then finding a way out of them -- but he's not in a leghold trap. His attitude, though, is helpful. Undoubtedly he would chew through his leg if he had to -- or the rocks, presumably. Is there a way to chew this wood?
    Steffi looks at the pack frame. Why is she here without her knife for once?
    She reaches for the gorp bag and gnaws at some peanuts, oats and chocolate drops. She guzzles a bit from the water bottle. Whoa! Not so fast. She looks at the pack frame speculatively. It was once her first backpack, aluminum frame and canvas straps with an orange canvas packbag. Not great, but for fifteen dollars it made a good companion for ten amazing days on the Appalachian Trail. Nothing left of it now but the straps and frame, but still putting in a good day's work.
    Steffi separates the frame from the tent and sleeping bag and hefts it. Aluminum, dubious. But it's all the leverage she's got. She jams it between the left-leg logs and pulls. Nothing. Pulls again. Nothing. Pulls again, really leaning into it.
    The frame bends.
    Sigh.
    One of the cross pieces has pulled loose from one of the uprights. She tugs and twists at it till it comes loose. She turns the soft metal tube in her hands. Not much of an edge, but -- something. Almost idly, she pokes at the wood in both logs with the open end of the tube, decides the far log is the punkiest, and starts digging.
    It's not an easy angle, and almost right away she can feel a sharp pain in the lower back. Aggh, okay, in stages. Hack wood, rest, read, hack wood, rest, read, eat, drink, hack wood. Her day's work is set. Like, how much worse is this than tree planting, really?
    Hack, rest, hack, rest, eat, drink, hmm out of water, hack, rest, hmm, thirsty. And, oh, it's getting dark. By now she has a decent pile of wood chips in front of her, some of which seem fairly dry. She gets out the Bic lighter and candle and drips some wax on the chips and starts a small fire right on top of the log. You never know, somebody might smell smoke down the canyon and come upstream to investigate. It hasn't been a really cold day, so there will be a sinking air mass, which means a downstream breeze.
    Hack, rest, hack. The hole between the logs hasn't grown much. Steffi looks up. The sky has cleared, there's a moon that was full only two days back.
    The eclipse party seems like years, decades, lifetimes, centuries ago. She'd been so sure they were gonna try to get her to say hi to the damned horse, she'd made a bit of an ass of herself.
    Nothing we can do about that right now.
    She stretches out with her pack frame and drags a rat's nest of beavered cottonwood branches and a chunk of fir bark over to her fire.
    The moonlight is mesmerizing. All the shadows round the pond are deep blue, and they move slowly, like daytime shadows do. Of course they would, she's just never noticed.
    The night air is getting colder, especially behind her, where the fire's warmth can't reach. Steffi wraps the sleeping bag round behind her and drapes her tent over herself. She must be a sight. Still thirsty, though.
    Hmm.
    The tent has a rain fly. Steffi gropes around, finds it, twists it skinny, and stuffs it down the left-leg hole, by one of its shock cords. When the cord feels heavy, she fishes out the wet rain fly and wrings it out into her mouth.
    Yeah, that'll do. Let's chop log some more. See if we can get our name back.

:::

Judging by the moon, it must be close to midnight. Still not enough wood gouged out to pull up that numbed foot. What's cold on her chest? Oh, it's the Buddha.
    Steffi fishes him out on his steel chain. It's a little metal Buddha pendant, not iron, probably pewter, but hey. A reminder of all the iron Buddhas she's met in the past three years. She smiles.
     Buddha smiles back, looking a bit like the Mona Lisa. Steffi wraps her hand round the pendant and leans back to rest a little bit.
    After awhile, a beat-up yellow crummy rolls up across the pond.
     "Hi, I'm Chuck. This is Willard, Amy, Juneen, Bill, Mike, Murray, Jerry-Up, Jerry-Down, Burt, and Marie. We're gonna pick up the MaGruders and go on up the hill."
    "Uh, hi, I'm Steffi Smith."
   "Throw your stuff in the back and climb in."
    She does so, and as she settles into the shotgun seat, turns around and waves. Everyone waves back.
    She spots Marie. "Marie, I'm sorry I ... "
    "Shh, it's okay, Stef. Watch the road."
    After the Magruders' place, the road ascends steeply. It's murky out, with a golden light suffusing the fog from above. Chuck eases round the curves, avoiding the cliffs on the left and hugging the cut-banks on the right. They come to a driveway, and here are Israel, Lon and Little Butch waiting with their dags, bags, caulks, lunch boxes, rain gear and hard hats. They climb in, laughing and joshing one another. Steffi rises, thinking to move toward the back, but Israel pats her on the shoulder. "Hey, kid, glad to see ya. Jus' stay right there, we got plenty room in th' back."
    Really? Seemed like a full crummy a few minutes ago. She cranes her neck to see back down the aisle, and sure enough, they're stuffing their gear into the overheads and piling into empty seats, smiling like pewter Buddhas. Chuck pulls the door handle, releases the air brake, and dodges back onto the narrow mountain road.
    The light is brightening. They come to a wideout and pick up Yoder, who has parked his ponderous van next to some kind of Forest Circus "Interpretive" sign, the kind sprinkled around the woods for the benefit of tourists. Steffi gathers up her stuff and sticks it in the front of the overhead, then pats the seat on her right. "What's the sign say?" she asks Yoder.
    Yoder settles right in, no longer the tentative newbie. "I got my spirit guide."
    "No, I mean the fazoo thingy."
    "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about about. The sign says my guide is you." He's wearing that idiotic pewter grin, like everyone else.
    "Ask a silly question ..."
    "Just watch the road, Stef, in case Chuck misses a stop."
    She does so. Just as it seems like the sunlight, the brightest sunlight ever, will break through the fog, they come abruptly to a halt, and there are Carlo, Dan, Jana, and Mervyn, who climb aboard with hazel hoes and Pulaskis.
    "Hey, Stef," says Mervyn. "D'ja bring your saw?"
    "Umm, don't think so. Didn't know this was a fire."
    Mervyn's foot kicks against something as he goes by. Steffi looks down; it's her chainsaw, in everyone's way in the aisle. She drags it under the seat, feeling her face flush with embarrassment at her thoughtlessness. She sits up and looks over her shoulder again.
    Damn, this is one big crummy.
    The bus rolls forward again, and finally pierces the clouds. Dawn awaits them, the sun shining on the fog bank; Steffi squints. It could be a million suns lamping a primordial sea.
    The bus stops again, and Rod climbs aboard, pants legs wet to his knees, carrying a long freshly cut sapling. All business, he jams the end of it under her seat and puts his shoulder to the other end. "What are you doing?" she asks him, startled.
    "Getting you out of this trap," he answers. "same as you'd do for me."
    Well, that was a diplomatic way to put it -- typical of the guy.  
    Steffi tries to sit up, but she's too stiff. Throwing an arm up against the sun, she sees that Rod is leaning into the sapling, prying apart two logs. "How did you find me?" Her voice is a croak.
    Rod stops long enough to give her a sip from a water bottle.
    "Carlo noticed you didn't show up at Central and called me. So I went to the Ritz and you hadn't been there. So I came straight here. Carlo, Dan and Mervyn will be right behind me, and we're going to litter you out of here." He drops the pole and gently fishes her foot from the dark pond, holding it out of the way while the great logs drift back together. "Would you like some breakfast?"
    "Yes. I'm ... I'm sorry I ran away from lunch, after you fixed it up so nice and all."
    "Nah, that was my fault. I shouldn't have put on Mandolin Wind just when I did ... well, we'll just get you fixed up and back to your truck in no time."
    Steffi studies his face. "Or, if it's okay, maybe instead to your place. You, know, for ... for lunch."
    Rod sits back and tilts his head, studying her in return. Some kind of tension flows away from his shoulders. "Yeah? That'd be nice."
    Behind him, above the tall black firs, a raven floats across the canyon, casually dodging a smaller blackbird that's harassing it.
    Steffi would have preferred something more like an omen -- an eagle, maybe. Oh, well. Nothing's perfect. But some things are pretty damn good.

    The Buddha smiles.

Iron Buddhas 19

 - 19 -

STEFFI MUSES as Little Bird whines around the curves. Much of this road will not abide fifth gear; she spends her time shifting between third and fourth. Lunch, a can of refries, rattles around in the five gallon bucket on the sissy bar. She'll eat at Central, get her marching orders and fill the bucket with provisions from the discount grocery.
    What was that all about at Stone Creek? Jana had led the way to Rod's place with the two pots of mint. He wasn't in, and she'd settled down on the front steps to give little Aaron a feed and, apparently, chat, which didn't seem at all like her.
    "I think he's getting your ride for you. Our phone is on the other side of the river, in a shed just down the bank from the wide-out." She'd smiled tentatively.
    Steffi had looked over beyond the rail fence, noting the black, muscular horse cropping grass there. The pasture had dried up for the summer, and the enormous creature was working the fence line, where shade had kept the good stuff going longer.
    She'd suddenly envisioned having to feed the thing an apple to please her hosts, and had felt light-headed. The day had gone badly after that.
    Distracted, she hits a sharp curve too fast, and is forced into the other lane. As luck would have it, here comes an old Oldsmobile, right at her. Steffi wrestles with Little Bird's handlebars, braking until she reaches gravel at the roadside, drops off the shoulder, and rattles to a frightened stop just short of a muddy creek, its embankment festooned with old-growth blackberries. She sits, gulping precious, miraculous air, steaming up her helmet's faceplate. Too close.
    I live in the country. How can there be so much going on in my head that I can't hit a simple curve without killing myself?

:::

    She makes it in to Eugene before she discovers her lunch is gone -- bounced out, no doubt, when Little Bird left the road.

:::

Walt, the duty bidder at Central, spreads a Forest Circus map. His kindly eyes, magnified by thick glasses, smile as he draws Steffi's attention to a penned circle in the lower left corner. "This is a creek in the Jones River watershed. We're building a little dam there for the fazoos, to help the salmon. Salmon need pools with gravel for spawning, and to get pools like that you need blowdowns lying in the water, and the loggers cleaned all the logs out back in the Fifties."
    "Uh huh."
    "It's only about two weeks' work, doesn't pay a lot, and the walk-in is a steep two miles. But it's about all we have on offer right now."
    "I'm there. Is this my map?"
    "No, but I'll photocopy this corner of it for you."

:::

Hoedags from the local area -- The Magruders and a few others -- have hiked in to set up camp, while Carlo rode shotgun on a helicopter to drop supplies at the site.
    "That was the most terrifying thing I've ever done. Our whole camp was slung on a wire rope underneath us, and the guy zips down the canyon, with old growth and rock faces on both sides. Our gear was just skimming over the creek, seems like. I. Thought. I. Was. Going. To. Die." Carlo's eyes are maximum wide, remembering.
    "What do we do here?" asks Steffi, to distract him.
    "Well, there are four of these dams, actually. We drop a tree at each flag hung by the fazoos, across the stream bed. Then we cut the ends off, about fifteen feet long, and drag them with Peaveys to the downstream side and tie them in as braces. This one --" stepping onto it -- "is all done, you can see the drift pins we've hammered in at the mortises, and then we heaped stones and gravel on the upstream side, about three hundred buckets full. It's mostly about the buckets."
    Water pours evenly across the low point in the log dam, falling about eighteen inches with a pleasing tinkle. In winter, Steffi knows, this will be a raging torrent. With such extremes, it's anyone's guess whether these logs will actually be useful, but money is money. The feds want dams, they get dams. "Where do I start?"

:::

    For three weeks, Steffi hauls buckets of rocks. The first couple of days, it's easy. Then she strains something and mopes in her rain-drummed dome tent for a day. Then, on reduced loads, she finds her own level. It's less rock per bucket than the guys are carrying, but they seem to appreciate her presence. She offers to dock herself ten percent of her take, but they turn her down. Fine, she'll do it at Central.
    As time goes on, the crew has to range farther and farther upstream or down to get gravel. Steffi loves the canyon and the routine, feeling her way through the icy water between glistening, fern-draped rock faces, as the big crawdads back away from her into submarine shadows.
    Fall is approaching. It rains a little, then a little more. Water is rising, and the crew puts in a couple of ten-hour days to finish the last dam. As Steffi pours out her final bucket of pebbles, muddying the water, the Magruders come down to water's edge.
    "We're packing up," says one. "Everybody will take two loads up to the road, and that's it till the tree planting starts," says the other.

:::

Steffi follows Carlo with a load. The straps of the pack frame cut into their shoulders, and they stop to make themselves tumplines -- polycords that extend from the tops of the packs to their foreheads, with padding. With these on, as they lean forward, some of the strain will be taken off their backs.
    Carlo points ahead into the gloomy underbrush. "We'll take the right fork up ahead. It goes straight up the fire trail on the side of the old clear cut but gets us to the landing with plenty of daylight."
    Steffi adjusts the bandanna she's using for a tump pad. "It seems dark already."
    "That's because it's a north slope. You can see from the sunlight on the firs on the opposite side, there's plenty of daylight for this one trip, and a little bit of margin for error."
    The climb is one of those that will either build your heart or stop it cold. Steffi counts steps. Every twenty, she has to stop and blow. What's in this load? Oh, yah -- one Husky chainsaw, a pry bar, five drift pins, and a come-along, all arranged around a (mercifully empty) jerry can. Couldn't we have just stashed the bloody drift pins? It's a cool afternoon in the shade, but sweat works out from under the rolled-up bandanna and seeps around her eyebrows, stinging both eyes. She wrings them out with her thumbs.
    "One more pitch," says Carlo encouragingly.
    They reach the landing after an hour and half of straight-up torture, and there is Carlo's old pickup truck, warm and inviting in the late afternoon sun.
    "It's too late for the last load, which is mostly your bag and tent anyway," says Carlo. "We should head for Greenwood and I'll come back for it if you like. You really look done in." He scans around the landing. "How did you get here, anyway?"
    "I'm on my bike. Stashed in the brush." Steffi draws a ragged breath, leans back against the truck body, and shrugs herself out from under the pack frame. "What I want to do, I think, is go back down and spend the night. Bring my stuff out in the morning."
    "I dunno, Stef. You'd be the only person for thirty miles each way."
    She grins. "Carlo, you know that's what I like best."

:::

Back in what's left of camp, which is mostly Steffi's little pop tent, her sleeping bag, and a bread bag half full of trail mix, she achingly pulls off her boots and damp socks, rolls up the cuffs of her jeans, eases down to the creek bank and puts her feet into the nearby pool. A red crawdad backs away, barely visible in the fading light. There are already stars.  
    Movement, perhaps the edge of a shadow on the water, prompts her to look up. A great horned owl has sailed across the stars and is disappearing among the black firs. Impulsively, she raises her arm to salute the giant bird's silent passage, and something -- a something soft, like a furball -- strikes her hand. There's a splash in the water.
    Steffi's first thought is that she has somehow hit a bat.
    A memory floods in behind her eyes, of neighborhood children beneath a street light, amusing themselves by swatting with a broom at tiny bats flitting into the lamplight for fire-addled bugs. So far as she can remember, no one ever managed to hit one. So what has happened here?
    There's a stir in the water. A small bird, so diminutive it takes her breath away, surfaces, hops on a rock, shakes itself thoroughly, and inspects its wings sullenly. It seems to Steffi the creature looks her over briefly, as if suspecting her of swatting it from the air on purpose. Then, with an indignant-sounding squeak, it flits away.
    Steffi finds herself alone with her thoughts.
    Jana had been disgusted. "What's with you all of a sudden?" she'd asked. "You're running away, without even staying for lunch."

(To be continued)

Iron Buddhas 18

 -18-

JANA TURNS up at Steffi's shoulder just as the moonlight starts coming back. "Y'wanna come over? We'll give you a place to sleep. Just a rug and a cowhide, but nice, you'll see."
    Steffi's up for that; so much party, she's bone tired. "Let's go."
    They don't need to feel around with their feet; it's after midnight with a full moon and their eyes have been fully adjusted for hours. Steffi sees silvered maples and silvery fir trees with silver-fingered sword ferns at their feet. From the openings she sees silver-lined mountains; they cross a tiny log bridge over a singing silver brook. The last clearing opens before them; there's a canvas tipi, eighteen feet tall, and it's bright orange, like a smoky sunrise. It's lit from within by no more than a bit of flame, yet illumines the clearing.
    Jana lifts aside the flap. "C'mon in."
    As Steffi's dilated eyes iris down in the interior's brightness, she finds she's facing, across a small firepit, a small woman sitting cross-legged. She looks a lot like Jana, but younger and rounder, and she's holding a sleeping baby. The younger woman speaks. "Threw some twigs on, so you could find your way home."
    "Lots of light out there," replies Jana. "Miryam, this is Stephanie."
    "Hiya.Heard lots about you. Settle in."
    Heard lots? Steffi knows, with her stiff body, she's not going to manage the cross-legged thing, so she kneels, sitting on her heels Japanese fashion, to Miryam's left. 
    Jana drops into place  on Miryam's right, cross-legged, easy as you please, and reaches for the baby. "Miryam's my sister," she says to Steffi, "Visiting from Columbia." 
    Miryam grins at Steffi's moment of hesitation. "Not the country, the college."
    "University," says Jana, checking the baby's diaper.
    "College to me. I'm testing out of everything I can, and plan to be out of there as soon as possible. I have one year down. One to go."
    "It will take you two," says Jana, looking in disgust at the slumbering infant's bottom. "There are only so many credits you can challenge. Want to hand over that pail?"
    Steffi casts about, not seeing anything at first in the stark and flickering shadows. It's a squarish plastic cat litter bucket, half filled with dried moss. She reaches it to Miryam, who hands it around the firepit to Jana. 
    Jana puts the bucket down and looks at Steffi. "Put about three pine cones on the fire so I don't stick Aaron, 'k? They're behind you." She grins, then puts two big diaper pins in her mouth.
    Steffi does so, admiring the procedure. Ponderosa pine cones. Seasoned and lightweight. They must be gathered specifically for this purpose, as she's seen none of the trees around here.
    In the bright light from the cones, Jana changes Aaron's moss. The baby cranks up, and Steffi feels a tightening in her middle -- she's sensitive to any noise she can't control. Half ready to bolt, she concentrates on Jana's hands. Line the diaper with moss, fold the outside edges in, almost meeting in the middle, fold the leading edge about half way to the middle, place Aaron with his bottom lined up with the fold, pull the front and back corners together and hold with one hand, take pin from mouth with the other, swipe it on your hair, stick it through the diaper, just missing Aaron, repeat on other side, done.
    Steffi's fascinated in spite of Aaron's goings on, which surprises her. "Wow."
    Jana smiles, but Miryam laughs outright, then covers her mouth with her hand, glancing at Jana from the corner of her eye. She sees she's not in trouble and returns her bright gaze to Steffi. "New at this?" 
    "Kinda. I've only seen the paper ones."
    "Well, we like cloth. When he's big enough to run around, he'll get bottomless pants until he's got himself under control. Our washer is the river, and the sun, when it's around, is the dryer. Otherwise we hang everything in here."
    Steffi knows some of this; there were kids, known as Hoebabies, in the work camps, but she's missed out on a lot of details by holing herself up in the Ritz. "What was that with your hair?"
    "Mm? Oh, it oils the pin, makes it a lot safer for the kid 'cuz it just slides right through the cotton."
    Aaron is really squalling now, so Jana ups her tee and offers him a breast. He roots, panicked and shivery, for a long moment, then latches on, gurgling and smacking.
    Miryam uncrosses her legs and pulls her knees up to her chin. She pokes at the embers with a twig, and they all watch as sparks rise, circle once or twice at the apex of the tipi, then find their way out through the smoke-hole. There are stars. "There's corn on the cob and potatoes under the fire, in aluminum foil," says Miryam to Steffi. "Have some for breakfast."
    "Thanks."
    "You still look a little puzzled."
    "Me?"
    "Sure. My big sister's married, he's the guy that met you all at the landing."
    "Oh."
    Jana smiles again, but says nothing. It's kind of a sad-looking smile.
    Miryam glances at Jana again, checking, and goes on. "They're kind of in a strain, so, like, they've got separate -- umm -- "
    "Domiciles," says Jana, looking into the fire.
    " -- domiciles, for now."
    Steffi actually knows what this is like. Should she tell them? Nahhh. Not yet, anyway.
    Jana lies down and pulls a woolen blanket over herself and little Aaron, whose noises are diminishing. Miryam rises on her knees and reaches for a rolled cowskin. "Here. Nice big Holstein, pretty soft really. You can sleep under it hair side up or down, suit yourself. Use a couple of my sweatshirts over there for a pillow."
    The carpeted floor is amazingly comfy. There's a dip right where Steffi's hip wants to go, and whatever is underneath -- sand from the river? -- yields better than expected. She's out before she finishes punching up her "pillow."

:::

Rolling over, Steffi pulls the cow-robe down from her closed eyes and wishes she hadn't. A whole lot of morning gets into a tipi, and all of it seems bent on giving her a headache.
    No one's around. She's up, embarrassed to realize she's slept in her clothes, shoes and all, as a guest. Reflexively, she runs for the bushes for her monring business, then gets halfway out of the clearing when she remembers the corn and potatoes. Heading back to the sun-bright, steaming tipi. she roots through the ashes and finds the two packets left for her, still hot. 
    Outside, nothing seems to be doing, neither activity nor voices. Steffi, finding the air chill so near the river, moves to a steaming stump, soaking up sun and carbohydrates.
    She's brushing away potato flakes when Janna, with Aaron on a cradleboard, appears along the trail from the main house. "You're up! Go for a walk?"
    "Umm," says Steffi, wiping the back of her hand with her sleeve. She folds the foil pieces and pockets them for later re-use, then follows Aaron, who looks stolidly back at her from his mother's shoulders.
    They're on another trail, one that leads deeper into the canyon. At first, little sunlight reaches the ground, most of it blocked by green and glistening cliffs. Here there are maiden-hair ferns, late trilliums still in bloom, false-Solomon's seal, and even wild ginger.
    Jana walks on, touching the trunks of the Douglas firs as she passes. Aaron, jouncing along, grows heavy-lidded and nods. Steffi shares the feeling. She's missing her morning coffee.
    They come to a place more brightly lit, and Steffi realizes the canyon has opened up a bit. No, a lot. It's a hidden valley. Stone Creek must rise back in here somewhere. If so, it must be small; she hears no water. The trees are smaller here, like a precommercial thinning unit -- yet the ground is nearly flat, and looks as if, cleared, it might be decent farm land. She's reminded of the loblolly pine plantations of South Georgia. 
    Jana leaves the trail, which is faint now in any case, and, holding aside a hazel branch for Steffi, leads the way to a rising slope on which sits a strange sight: a house, many roomed, many-gabled, with windows of every shape looking in every direction. 
    It's a beautiful thing, and utterly ruined. Cedar shakes have fallen from the walls and roof, and already young alders are growing through in half a dozen places.
    "W-what?" Steffi stammers.
    "This was our house. This was Stone Creek. We had the horses here, we had our gardens. It's where we all came after the Sixties, to start over. And we almost did -- our Eden."
    "It's -- it's a wonderful place. So why did you move down by the river?"
    Jana turns to face Steffi. "There's a property line. We didn't know. Our eighty acres stops about three hundred feet back. Timberlands came by and said to get out. We got out."
    "Oh." Steffi looks at the house again. There are alder leaves on the nearest windowsill . Inside. "Wow, so that's why the houses are right by the river."
    "Yeah. We know we're taking a chance. Here in the Coast Range, the peak flow can be one hundred thousand times the minimum. But we'll just have to go with it. That's why the cable car is up so high."
    A distant crow caws, somehow reminding Steffi of brownies.
    Jana listens to the crow too, and comments. "That was an agreement. Crow says, "everything changes." You make plans, they fall through. Then you meet a guy, you get a baby. But that's not bad. I was a good tree planter, but I dunno if I could do it now. I mean, my sister'll go back to school, but everyone would watch the kid, my man would pitch in -- he's all right, I just can't stand being in the same house with him. But it's like, if I went back to it I'd be going back to it -- backwards is what it would be. Aaron is forwards. My tipi and the next house -- my own house -- forwards."
     Steffi can see that. Her body is getting harder to move in the mornings after a day's planting, or fire, or especially the saw work. She's all ears.
    Jana starts toward the trail without looking back at the house. "And, you, you think you're gonna plant forever?"
    Mind-reader.
    "Well, umm, I thought maybe another year, then see what happens?"
    Jana does that smile again. "Uh-huh. So, I heard -- you were married? You got divorced?"
    Deep breath. Out with it.
    "Three divorces. No Mr. Right." Too many jerks. Think Mr. and Mrs. is a one way ticket.
    Jana stops in her tracks, swings around, and grins. "Oh, that's -- that's great."
    Steffi knits up her brows. "It is?"
    "Yeah, it means you believe in the institution."
    "And that's great because ... "
    "Oh, time will tell. Have you seen all the houses yet?"
    Where did all that come from?
    Jana bends down to the ground, tilting the snoozing Aaron skyward. "Oh, good. Look here."
    "What?"
   "This was my herb bed. There's still plenty of apple mint." Jana pulls up a handful, with dirt. "Here, take some. We'll pot it up back home -- two pots. Some for you, and we'll take some over to Rod's."
    
    

(To be continued)